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Sales & Trading

UICBS ASSICURASAI SpA (UAS) specialist Sales & Trading division provide specialist expertise for our clients. UAS are able to arrange and execute specialist facilities for our clients in, Equities, Fixed income, Currencies and Commodities.

 

Equities

This specialist area is specific to stock trading which are generally segmented as:

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Cash equities: Trading of stock

Equity derivatives: Trading derivatives of equities (i.e. stock options) and equity components.

 

Fixed Income

Bonds that are regularly segmented in the following manner:

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Credit: Corporate bonds, Credit derivatives

Commodities: Oil & gas, gold & silver, cocoa, coffee, wheat & sugar

Currencies: Foreign Exchange (FX)

Rates: Government bonds and Interest rate derivatives

Municipals: Tax-exempt bonds (State, Municipality, Non-Profit)

Securities: Mortgage-backed securities & Asset backed securities

                                     

Trading Types

UAS facilitate four main types of trading for clients, as detailed below:

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Flow Trading

Flow trading occurs when a bank makes a trade directly without having to going through an exchange, replacing the principal referred to as a principal transaction. Upon a trade being made, the client decides either to buy or sell. The trader sets the price and takes the other side, making a bid-offer spread for the transaction. Today traders are mainly flow traders, utilising Proprietary Trading which is becoming less customary, with traditional agency trading being replaced by trending electronic trading. Most most flow trades are predominantly of fixed income and equity derivatives.

 

Agency Trading

Heftily traded, liquid securities traded on major exchanges such as the FTSE, NASDAQ, or the NYSE, there is practically no requirement for flow trading, as most buyers and sellers only require the trader to send the order to the exchange behalf of the client. Given these circumstances, investment banks takes “no risk” in "agency trades." In this situation traders will earn very small commissions as they only act as agent attracting little or no risk. The most common agency trades are stocks (also referred to as cash equities), futures trades and specialist derivatives. 

 

Electronic Trading

Electronic trading, known as platform or algorithmic trading, comprising of setting up of an account with a brokerage (UAS). This process includes providing the client’s personal & financial information, to facilitate electronic financial transfers between the client’s bank and the brokerage (UAS). The modern day electronic trading investors (online), trade without the requirement to call an agent. Traders have now been replaced through online platforms which incorporate a framework which is derived through web based software and specifically derived algorithms.

 

Prop Trading

Prop trading is short form, representing proprietary trading which refers to trading incorporating the agent who acts on behalf of the bank, as opposed to on behalf of the client.  Prop trading incorporates taking both long and short positions across a variety of securities transactions. Regulatory and market changes have dictated that Prop trading is predominantly eradicated from investment banking due to almost all institutions having mainly focused their risk profiles to Hedge Funds.